SSD ...but which one?!

[fbram]

hey guys,

im looking to invest in a ssd drive.... but dont know where to start.... im just looking to run windows and imporant apps and games on it so im not looking for alot of space... so anything under 100gb is fine but over 40gb...


my question is... is there something i should look for in a ssd?... im looking mainly for gaming performance....i know some ssd's are faster than other.... and advise? like transfer rates ect... bang for buck ect!!!


thanks!!!!!

 

[fbram]

anyone?>!?!

 

[RetiredChief]

Recommend Min size @ 64->80 gig, Recommended 100->128 Gig.

When used as a boot/program drive, that is exactly what the speed up, booting in the operating systme and program load times.

You indicated primary speeding up gaming. The game will initially load faster, but will not run faster. Disk access to maps, and other files will load faster, but only if thoes files are also installed on the SSD - again the game will not run faster.

Recommend sataying away from the Sata III SSDs using the SF22xx ie (OCZ Sata III drives) controller until they get their problems irorned out.

 

[aznguy0028]

You should look into the Crucial M4. It's prices are well placed but more importantly it has a good rate of reliability. The read/write speed isn't the fastest, reads around ~410mb, but that doesn't matter anyways. It would only matter if you were constantly transferring large incompressible files. Also the M4 has one of the highest 4k's in any of the SSD's today, which is the thing you should be looking for in a casual, normal desktop.

Stay away from any drives that uses the SF 2281 controller, aka Vertex 3, corsair force3, gt's, etc. The bsods/problems are not fun to deal with.

 

[tecmo34]

I don't think I can add much more to what was said above. I support the recommendation for the Crucial m4 but I'm not so against Sandforce 22xx drives like many others. The newer firmware looks to have improved their performance but there is a risk. As for size, I recommend 120GB for your needs to allow for apps & games.

 

[_Pez_]

Of course those problems are related with Intel chipsets not with SSDS go for OCZ Vertex3 or agility 2, those are the best at the moment.

 

[fbram]

wow thank you guys so much for your time and input

i been looking at the 64GB Samsung Solid State Drive - 470 Series for around 100 bucks... what do u guys think?... or where should i shop for these drives

and i also saw this one for around the same price Crucial M4 CT064M4SSD2 2.5" 64GB SATA III MLC

so what should i focus on Read speeds over write?.. or balanced?

the samsung has 250MB/sec sequential read speed and 170MB/sec sequential write speed

and the crucial has up to 415MB/s Sequential Read, up to 95MB/s Sequential Write and 20K IOPS for Random 4k Read (64GB @ SATA 6Gb/s, measured using Iometer with a queue depth of 32 and write cache enabled)

lil confused.... haha thanks again guys for the reply's

 

[blackhawk1928]

If I were you, buying an OS/Boot SSD, I'd be focused on access times/ random reads/writes. Most of your OS is mostly composed of a thousands of tiny files, many are 4Kb, so a faster access time will provide a lot more benefit than faster sequential read/writes.

 

[fbram]

thanks blackhawk... which drive would u go with ?!

 

[RetiredChief]

Manufs advertize Sequential read/writes - The LEAST important performance parameter.

Give a read: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4421/the-2011-midrange-ssd-roundup/6